Page:Secrets of Crewe House.djvu/113

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OPERATIONS AGAINST GERMANY
75

during the war of joint controls and joint expeditions; there has been a great education in internationalism since August, 1914; but nevertheless the end of the war is likely to come long before any real international forces have been evolved. It is, however, towards the ultimate use of international forces in such cases that the joint policy of the Allies is plainly and openly directed.

"The bringing of the League into practical politics profoundly affects the question of territorial adjustment after the war. The Allies are bound in honour to follow the will of France in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, and the rectification of the Italian frontier and the bringing of the bulk of the Italian-speaking population, now under Austrian dominion, into one ring-fence with Italy, also seem a necessary part of a world pacification. It is, however, of far less importance in the war aims of the Allies that this and that particular scrap of territory should change hands from the control of one group of combatants to that of the other, than that the present practical ascendency of German Imperialism over the resources of the Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Jugo-Slav, Finnish, and Roumanian peoples should cease. The war aim of the Allies in Eastern Europe